The President of the National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Rev. Isaac Owusu, and the Vice President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) Jacob Anaba, on Monday, March 25, took on the Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) over the ongoing nationwide strike by public school teachers.

While appearing as guests on JoyNews’ PM Express, the two reps from the two major teacher unions expressed their dissatisfaction with comments made by Mr Ben Arthur which they considered to be an attack on them for embarking on an industrial action.

On March 20, the three teacher unions namely, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Ghana National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT-GH) declared a strike due to unsatisfactory conditions of service.

According to the unions, the government had failed to renew its collective agreement, among other concerns, following its expiration in 2023.

They argued that since all efforts to get the government to the negotiation table have proven futile, laying down their tools was their last resort.

However, the FWSC CEO claimed that the teacher unions had disregarded the processes for declaring a strike and had also failed to respect an order by the National Labour Commission (NLC) for them to call off their strike.

He also lambasted them for failing to show up for a meeting called by the FWSC and its mother agency, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.

“The question that I want to ask which is missing from all your arguments is; are our teachers, whatever their grievances above the laws of this country? Do you think that we should have a country where our teachers do not respect the laws of this country? What type of country do you want to build and what do you want to teach our kids? Where you have gone on strike with a Reverend Minister leading it, at the end of the day, you have failed to comply with the labour laws of this country.

“There are procedures, there are provisions as to what must happen before you can really embark on a strike. You failed to notify the employer, Fair Wages was not in the know, and what was statutory of you to notify the National Labour Commission was also not done, and then all of a sudden we’re ambushed.

But the GNAT President told the host, Evans Mensah, that teachers will not return to the classroom until all their demands are met, no matter the attacks on them by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission’s CEO.

He vehemently insisted that the strike was legal and that they had written to their employers before embarking on the action. He reminded the FWSC CEO that they were not their employers, suggesting that they were under no obligation to notify the FWSC.

He also justified their decision not to honour the FWSC and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations meeting.

“Engineer [Fair Wages CEO] has been attacking us at the least opportunity he gets since Wednesday when we declared the strike.

“Evans, when it comes to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the unions have raised five solid issues, and each of the issues is very important and dear to the teacher we’re representing. Regarding the issue concerning the laptop, the contract says that within 12 calendar months; that is from January 2021 to December 2021, the supplier should have finished the distribution and we are in 2024. More than 100,000 teachers have not received the laptop, and what is the engineer talking about?” he fumed.

“The collective agreement, before the 2020 one that we signed, we were having 2009 collective agreement and we used it from 2009 to the year 2020. I want Engineer [FWSC CEO] to understand that, yes, you’re under the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, but you’re not the employer of the teacher. The law says that if we want to embark on industrial action we should notify the employer. Engineer, are you the Director-General for GES? Evans, we wrote two separate letters on the 29th of February and in those letters, the NLC was duly notified.”

Rev. Isaac Owusu condemned what he called an attack on his reverend Minister status, reminding the FWSC CEO that he was first a teacher and had every right to act in the interest of the teachers he was leading.

“The teachers of today are not the teachers of yesterday. The teachers of today are demanding results from leadership, and that’s what we are doing. We don’t have any ill motives and nobody is behind us” he noted, in response to Mr Ben Arthur’s query to know what their true motivation for the strike is.

He disclosed that they’re meeting the National Labour Commission on Tuesday, March 26, on the same matters.

The Vice President of NAGRAT, Jacob Anaba, who also joined the PM Express discussion in studio confronted Mr Ben Arthur of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission for some of the remarks he made which he considered an attack on the teachers.

Mr Anaba also brought out hard copies of letters the unions had written to back his colleague’s assertion that they had gone through the right processes before declaring the strike. The FWSC CEO also read out letters to buttress his points on the show.